New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday that his office had already had “indirect” conversations with Vice President Kamala Harris' team and that the presumptive Democratic nominee will soon release a plan on how to deal with the border crisis.
President Biden endorsed Harris as his successor after the latter announced he would not run for reelection on Sunday. Adams, who has been dealing with an overwhelming surge of migrants arriving in the sanctuary city, was asked if she had been in contact with Harris.
“We've had indirect conversations with her team and I think she's going to present her plan on what she wants to do about this border crisis,” he said.
FEARING TRUMP'S VICTORY, NEW MIGRANT CARAVAN FACE THE U.S. BORDER
Migrants leave for a shelter in New York City on September 27, 2022. (Michael Nagle/Xinhua via Getty Images)
Immigration and the ongoing crisis at the southern border are likely to be top of mind in the coming months and will consistently appear as an issue of importance to voters.
In 2021, Biden tasked Harris with leading the diplomatic effort to address the issue. “root causes” of migration in the Northern Triangle countries. This earned Republicans the nickname “border czar,” although the White House has rejected that description.
The Biden administration has blamed the crisis on Republicans in Congress for failing to approve funding and reforms to what it says is a “broken” system.
The White House Most recently, Biden announced an executive order in June to limit entries into the United States, and overall encounters have declined by more than 50%, and the number of releases has dropped by 70%. Officials also say the administration has expelled and returned more than 50,000 people to more than 100 countries.
“While the President's action has produced significant results, it is clear that the only lasting solution to the challenges we are seeing at our border – the solution that would provide the additional authorities, resources and personnel we need to secure our border – is through action by Congress,” one official said.
BORDER SECURITY AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION TOPPING THE GOP CONVENTION AGENDA: 'MASS DEPORTATION NOW!'
But Republicans have blamed the crisis on the administration's “open borders” policies and have recently sought to link Harris to actions taken by the administration.
“Candidates should have no qualms about aggressively linking their opponents to Kamala Harris' extreme agenda,” a memo from the National Republican Senatorial Campaign said this week.
Adams has been critical of the administration at times, calling for more federal action and more funding for states and cities that take in migrants in large numbers. On Tuesday, he said the White House should resurrect a bipartisan Senate package introduced earlier this year, and he also praised recent executive actions taken by Biden.
'EXTREME AGENDA': HARRIS' RECORD ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION RESURRECTS AFTER BIDEN STEP DOWN
“I think it's a great start… some of these executive orders that have come out of the White House have been extremely helpful, and I think we need to put that bipartisan plan aside and say it's time to implement it and move on, but the most important thing we can do is let people get to work.”
He also had his own suggestions, including the creation of a “decompression tsar” to manage the destinations of migrants.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“Most people who come into the country are paroled. At that level, there should be a decompression czar. We should identify municipalities that are losing population; we have places in this country that are losing population; we should identify those places and tell those who we are paroling to go there for three years, deal with those population problems, deal with employment problems, and after three years, they can travel around the country,” he said.
“We can turn this crisis into an opportunity if we manage it and do not allow it to control us.”
